


Such Good Luck

by KorrohShipper



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Comfort, Depression, F/M, Hurt, Matthew Crawley Lives, Matthew and Mary - Freeform, Moving On, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:54:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22349071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KorrohShipper/pseuds/KorrohShipper
Summary: “I. . .I just want a moment, a sign that you would be happy for me as I’d be happy for you—” he choked, finally, on his tears and fell to his knees, “—my darling.”
Relationships: Mary Crawley/Matthew Crawley
Comments: 5
Kudos: 40





	Such Good Luck

It was a sobering moment, standing in the middle of the morgue, coming to stare at a face he knew so well, the familiarity of it all only to be so different altogether.

His fingers fell to touch her skin and he immediately withdrew it back—she was pale, yes, but never cold.

Matthew stifled a sob that threatened to bubble through his throat. He had half a mind to drop to his knees, beg her to will herself back to life. But it wouldn’t do anything real.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Crawley.”

* * *

There had been a convention in London, a symposium by some famous doctor. Every medical physician had been in awe. The radio at the hospital was hounded by the lots of doctors and nurses. “Childbirth is a science, simply one yet to be perfected. Fifteen out of twenty-five women die in childbirth—”

Dr. Clarkson had been listening to the broadcast when he stormed over to the radio and angrily snipped it off. Robert looked like he ought to give him a piece of his mind.

“What right?” he asked in a dangerously low tone, not even bothering to hide the tears that shone on his face. “To equate her to some sort of statistic? To a number in the figure?”

His mother went over to him and enveloped him in a deep embrace.

“We were so. . .” Happy. They were happy. They were just at the beginning of what should have been a long and happy life together. She was taken away from him, fifty years before her time. “We were supposed to be together.” And he thinks how wrong it is, to live without her when they should have had more.

More years together.

More time.

Just. . . _more_.

* * *

Cousin Cora refused to see him.

In a fit of memories trying to possess him, the task of modernizing the estate was put to a momentary halt when he passed his old room, the one where he would wake up and see his wife by his side. No one entered the room anymore as it was transformed overnight into a sacred mausoleum, a dedicated shrine of sorts, wherein even one's presence is as disrespectful as vandalism. 

Only, he wasn't the only one making a pilgrimage there.

"Mary. She was the first to make me a mother, Matthew." There was a sniffle. "My baby. . ."

Cora sat, just by the edge of the bed. 

The creak of the floorboard must have gave him away, "When I gave birth to her, Mary refused to settle down. She would cry and cry until we found this small spot—" she didn't turn around, but he could see the sun just lighting the entire room quite right, "—she refused to be anywhere otherwise ever since."

Matthew tried to move towards her, maybe, with just his presence, he could tell her just how much he hurts by her mere absence, that she wasn't the only one who had lost her. 

Unfortunately, Cousin Cora had different plans. She abruptly stood up, tears streaking her face and eyes red-rimmed. It seems, every step he took in her direction, she kept spacing her distance even more. 

“I’m afraid my American sensibilities wouldn’t allow me.” She tugged on the rope and a footman appeared. “Please see Matthew out.”

* * *

George looked like him, a spitting image.

Blue eyes and blonde wisps of hair.

His mother crooned at the infant swaddled in cloth. Robert appeared by the door of the nursery. “A handsome chap, no doubt.”

There they were, hounding in on his son while he couldn’t even bear to look at him because all he could think about was how he took her away from him.

* * *

He woke up screaming one night.

Edith was the one who found him and understood, almost immediately, the reason for his tears.

Matthew clutched the framed wedding portrait in his arms and sobbed until he would feel nothing. “I’m beginning to forget her.” He cried, shutting his eyes, willing the image, the memory of Mary back to his life. “I’m starting to forget the sound of her voice.”

Edith, in a moment of shared loss, went to him and cried alongside.

* * *

Slowly, waking up in the morning isn’t as hard as it was.

Cousin Cora began to smile at him once more. 

Once again, the sound of his son’s cries fills his heart with joy rather than the memory of the pain he felt when he lost her that day.

When he realized, one day, when he began to smile once more, he visited her grave.

A bouquet of withered flowers lay at the bed of the headstone. Gingerly, he picked them up and replace them with new, fresh flowers.

“I always thought that I would give you flowers, every day, for the rest of our lives,” he smiled sadly, caressing the stone, tracing with his fingers the name etched into it. “This isn’t how I imagined giving them, however.”

Matthew fished a picture of George which soundly sat in his pocket. “He’s grown. They say he looks entirely like me. They're wrong, Mary. They don’t know you like I do. . .” he trailed off, smiling.

And he thought of George, the product of their union and how proud Mary would have been to see him now.

“He has your smile.”

* * *

The Duke of York once visited Downton.

He kept grinning in his compass which he kept always with him. The prince smiled at him, shy and determined all the same. “I’m going to ask her to marry me.” Matthew, for a brief moment, saw not a different, younger man, instead a reflection of himself.

He saw, in the prince’s eyes, the hope and faith that the woman he loves will answer him with a yes.

“Splendid.” He said. “I expect an invite, naturally, Your Highness.”

“Do you have someone like that.” The young prince asked him. “Did you ever feel like that? Know with all your being that you’re meant to be with someone.”

Matthew paused. Memories came flooding back to him like a wildfire that refused to be put out. Sometimes, he could even feel the ghost of her lips just hovering above his.

_“I would never be happy with anyone else as long as you walked this earth.”_

He choked back. “I did. . .I was.”

“Will you tell me about her?”

“No. I don’t think I will.”

* * *

Matthew twisted the ring on his finger.

Rose found a woman, a lovely woman who she raves about who will be nothing short of perfect for him.

A part of him wants to back out, stop before the meeting ever began.

But he imagines her, just hanging about in the reflection, just over his shoulder. She would smile and roll her eyes. “ _You silly man_ ,” she would say. “ _Go. Live. Stop hanging about_.”

* * *

On the eve before his wedding, Matthew visited the cemetery.

“It’s been three years.” The grave, naturally, didn’t answer back. “George is getting so big. Very loud, even.”

He fished from his pocket, a stuffed plush of a dog and placed it on top of the headstone. 

_Mary smiled at him, tears already gleaming in her eyes, “And such good luck.”_

“I’m afraid I’m going to need luck tomorrow.” He sniffed. “You were always so good at that, giving me luck and strength.”

The epitaph read, “Loving wife and mother.”

Matthew felt a tear run through his face. “A year of marriage isn’t enough. With you, I want each minute. Every minute.” Snow began to fall and he couldn’t help but remember the proposal, when she finally said _yes_.

“I’m getting married tomorrow.” He loved her, his fiancée. But in many ways, he needed this, one last moment with Mary, just one last night where he wasn’t a widow, where he wasn’t engaged to be married either.

Just a moment alone with his wife, the love of his life.

“The truth is, I love her. But I just, maybe for a moment, want to go back. Just for a little while, be your husband once more.” His heart ached and he felt like he could burst crying. “What I’m trying say is that—I don’t know if you could hear, if you’re even there somewhere—I love her, and I want to marry her, but I would only do so if you would give me your blessing.”

He felt cold, even though he had a coat.

“I. . .I just want a moment, a sign that you would be happy for me as I’d be happy for you—” he choked, finally, on his tears and fell to his knees, “— _my darling_.”

Matthew rested his forehead against the cold headstone.

“Remember, however much I love her, I will always love you. Until the last breath leaves my body—and beyond.” He closed his eyes, kneeling silent before her grave in the dead of the night when the wind picked up.

The snow danced around him, like the day the proposed.

He choked on a sound, in the marriage of his tears and laughter. He could still imagine her smile when he once knelt down in front of her a very long time ago. He once asked her to marry when he first knelt down, now, as he found himself on his knees, he's asking for her blessing to move on, to be happy again.

Whatever he had asked, however he had asked it, it seems most effective—a sign he had been given.

A small flake of snow fell across his cheek, just by the edge of his lips. Oddly enough, it wasn’t at all cold. It felt like home, like Mary. He remembered that day he proposed, it was far too cold but he didn't mind it, because he was going to ask her and part of him kept thinking, wildly, unreserved and optimistic, knowing deep in his heart that she would say yes.

The snow fell on his face. It felt like a kiss from her. Like a blessing from her. It was almost as magical as the moment she said yes. 

Matthew looked up, to where the lucky charm sat atop the stone. For a moment, he was back at the train station, ready to leave for war once again. Instead of kneeling before her grave, he saw her once more, on that same platform, wishing him luck and health, handing him, once again, the charm she so lovingly held on to. 

With the wind now howling, after such a long time, after almost forgetting her voice, he knows. Her laughter that could light up even the darkest of his days, he could hear her now. And her love, he could feel it, like an embrace that lingered on. 

At that moment, Matthew understood that his is the true Mary, and that Mary will be with him, by his side, always.

“And such good luck.”


End file.
